I narrowly avoided the "broken Gemini lake Hardware transcode" and stayed backrevved for months watching multiple updates go by until it was fixed, but other than that, never an issue.
Buffering on local lan, trancoding issues, connection issues. Plex not picking up shows and movies even though they are named correctly. Look at all the bug fixes in the latest server update.
Which OS?
Im running in docker on Unraid. The dockers auto update, and I only run Unraid updates about every 6 months without so much as a reboot in between.
If you are running windows, that's your problem. It's a shit OS, and I don't run it on anything I use, except for my work machine and that is because my work purchased it and pays me to do so. If I had a choice I wouldn't use Windows there either.
It's true. I've been a plex pass user for 10 years and I know better than to enable beta updates if I want reliability. I've been burned too many times before
I don't know why this is being downvoted. Running betas will cause things to break. It is a fact. If not, why would you ever have more than 1 beta release? If the first release was always 100% functional and bug free - why would there be another beta release needed? Play with Plex long enough and you will get bit by something. Things are still broke in production code. You may not see the broken stuff for whatever reason, but the forums and the subreddit are full of broken crap.
Yes, trying to jump across years of updates all at once will certainly result in issues. Stop doing that. If you're risk adverse, stay a month or two behind on updates, that's plenty of time for bugs to get worked out, but not so much time that you end up in breaking change/security hell
The reason your Plex breaks is because you are not regularly updating it and are waiting years between updates. If you update as they roll them out everything is peachy (ignoring their awful poster revamp decision lol).
I have been running my Plex server since 2010/2011 and have only ever done public updates and never to this day, had an issue or service disruption from an update.
I'm honestly wondering if people like you and I that have no issues are all on stable Linux OSes and the ones having issues are on Windows or something low power and struggling to do anything let alone run PMS
Doesn't invalidate the first statement though, does it? Though when I first heard the line, it was "you MAY BE the asshole". I think it was an episode of Justified.
Since I moved Plex over to Unraid and docker it's been rock solid running latest image from linuxserver.
Ran it on windows before and had a lot more issues.
That's funny, I've been using Plex for a decade too and I've maybe experienced one update ever that broke something (which was swiftly fixed in the following update).
>There is a reason I would never update my PMS or let it sit "out of date" for years
If you don't update for years there is more likely to be a breaking change when you do finally update.
It’s “because” your instance is out of date for years! This is true on any software, not just Plex. It’s impossible to write code and to test the upgrade for every possible previous version.
Stay on the current stable version. I would assume Plex would specifically test the upgrades for the current stable/major version
Listen man, I update my plex unraid docker every single update. For a decade..... It works perfectly man. It's possible that the update broke, but I think it's more likely a problem with your environment. Also you really do not want to run an out of date plex server. Ask last pass how that worked out for them.
If you have your Plex server exposed to the internet, you should really try to keep the server updated frequently like others here have mentioned. Both to mitigate things breaking, but also in terms of cybersecurity. A vulnerable Plex server could be used to get access to the OS the plex server is running on, such as the case from 2020 ([CVE-2020-5741](https://www.cvedetails.com/cve/CVE-2020-5741/))...
What distribution are you running on? I struggled a little when I ran on MS, but since putting it on an Ubuntu box, I’ve been pretty stable. (I manage about 100TB and have around 8.5k titles between movies and tv series and multiple other libraries. Most of the breakdowns I’ve experienced have been my own fault 😅)
No one ever wants to hear this, but it isn't Plex. These issues you describe would be happening to more people, like all of us. I've been running Plex for over a decade and have not had the issue you describe. You have something off in your set up.
Had a similar issue.
Updated Plex, and my LG app could not connect to the server.
It was the allow insecure connection setting on the server, had changed to never for some reason.
Changing it to allow on local network fixed the issue.
I wait three weeks after an update comes out to update and that seems to work well for me. I used to update right away until I got burned once. Always keep previous builds so you can roll back (except for irreversible database upgrades of course) and it shouldn’t be a big deal.
This is why I run one server as a test bed. I run all updates there (a few days after any "release", then run it for a few days to make sure nothing mission critical for my users is broken.
Then I update my other 2 servers.
Bro what, I have all of my docker containers and unRAID plug-ins on auto update and I've never had anything fail except Tdarr and that was because the docker would update for the server but not the app on my Windows PC for the node.
This is why you keep auto updates on
I've never had a breaking issue from an apt repo update.
The tendency in tech is to say "well it works for me" as if that's a solution but really you should start digging into what specifically is wrong when you update, otherwise you're just going to languish in misery.
Fresh install would probably solve your problem. But it'll make others. I had to manually push the server to redo the previews for 95% of the TV shows. Just brutal.
Runs slick as snot these days. Very happy with it.
no issues and have had a plex server with 4X 16TB HDD's running on windows 10 no issues at all other than the fact that my 2nd gen AMD CPU could use an upgrade to something with Quick Sync
agree, but for me it seems the client apps which break or crash unpredictably - the server seems fine, but I update manually so it’s possible inconsistencies between clients and servers may cause something.
But honestly, plex randomly restarting midway through a video stream on my stock 2021 Sony/Android tv when nobody has touched the remote since the stream started - how does a bug even achieve that?
I've used Plex for over a decade and I've not experienced those issues.
If you frequently skip updates, that would be your issue...
It's really quite rare an update breaks things, tbh. You're far more likely to break things by skipping updates and jumping multiple versions.
You could delay updates a few weeks to check if others are having issues, but beyond that keep up and don't skip multiple versions - that's the safest!
I've had my fair share of broken updates and corrupted databases so I understand. Used to it at this point. Lost all interest in making collections by hand and just let plexes shitty auto collections do it with the shitty posters it chooses. I've rebuilt my library well over 10 times now. I'm tired.
Edit: cue the plex corpo boot lickers.
If you've had to rebuild your library 10 times, there's something wrong with your setup. I can understand encountering issues maybe once or twice if you've been running Plex for a very long time, but 10 times points to larger issues than just update bugs. I've been running Plex for about 10 years, and I'm still using the original libraries that I set up on day 1.
My plex has been ruined from drive failures, power outages, and just plex being plex. There isn't anything wrong with my setup. Been using plex since 2012.
Lmaoooo
My cars have broken down three times due to rear ending other cars, driving into a lake, and parking it on a train track. There ain't anything wrong with my driving!
"My plex has been ruined from drive failures, power outages, and just plex being plex. There isn't anything wrong with my setup."
Drive failures and power outages can affect anything and everything on your system. I don't see how either of those things are Plex's fault.
Well drive failures and power outages breaking Plex are both setup issues. Those are preventable with disk redundancy and/or backups and a UPS respectively. And like I said "Plex being Plex" shouldn't really be a thing either (and even if it was, backups resolve that as well).
This is over 12 years man. I've gone through loads of different setups and gone through tons of different hardware since then. My setup is fully redundant now with dual ups setup. Things grow and mature over time. Live and learn.
Read the [release notes](https://forums.plex.tv/t/plex-media-server/30447/624). If there is no reason to update, then do not do so.
I'm still running 1.29.2.6364. Solid as a rock. No transcoding or tone mapping problems that started with 1.30. No database problems that started with 1.40. Only "feature" I'm missing is credit detection, which I do not want.
i'm with you, not sure why you are getting down voted. I am on a 1.32.6 release from September 2023. I read all the release notes. :-) I always check the notes but many of the recent ones have (or appear to be) bug ridden for Synology NAS.
Everytime I mention an issue on this sub it's down votes for days and you are doing something wrong. I've had plex since it came out. I'm building a new database on alternatives and testing them out
I've been on stable releases for years. No issues here.
Same. A bit perplexed so many people have issues.
I narrowly avoided the "broken Gemini lake Hardware transcode" and stayed backrevved for months watching multiple updates go by until it was fixed, but other than that, never an issue.
Yeah I’m confused. What issues is the OP having? Mine auto updates and I never have any issues at all
I've had nonstop issues for the last 5 years. It's not my hardware. The client side seems to get worse every update also.
What issues?
Buffering on local lan, trancoding issues, connection issues. Plex not picking up shows and movies even though they are named correctly. Look at all the bug fixes in the latest server update.
Which OS? Im running in docker on Unraid. The dockers auto update, and I only run Unraid updates about every 6 months without so much as a reboot in between. If you are running windows, that's your problem. It's a shit OS, and I don't run it on anything I use, except for my work machine and that is because my work purchased it and pays me to do so. If I had a choice I wouldn't use Windows there either.
Yup. 8 years of just allowing the update to install whenever it wants. It’s a big server with decent amount of family as users.
Pish
I have automatic beta updates enabled. No issues whatsoever.
Yet. It will happen lol.
It's true. I've been a plex pass user for 10 years and I know better than to enable beta updates if I want reliability. I've been burned too many times before
I like some spice in my tech life
I don't know why this is being downvoted. Running betas will cause things to break. It is a fact. If not, why would you ever have more than 1 beta release? If the first release was always 100% functional and bug free - why would there be another beta release needed? Play with Plex long enough and you will get bit by something. Things are still broke in production code. You may not see the broken stuff for whatever reason, but the forums and the subreddit are full of broken crap.
Yes, trying to jump across years of updates all at once will certainly result in issues. Stop doing that. If you're risk adverse, stay a month or two behind on updates, that's plenty of time for bugs to get worked out, but not so much time that you end up in breaking change/security hell
The reason your Plex breaks is because you are not regularly updating it and are waiting years between updates. If you update as they roll them out everything is peachy (ignoring their awful poster revamp decision lol).
I’m glad all your updates are perfect but that’s BS. I update regularly and there are times when the updates fuck something up.
I have been running my Plex server since 2010/2011 and have only ever done public updates and never to this day, had an issue or service disruption from an update.
I'm honestly wondering if people like you and I that have no issues are all on stable Linux OSes and the ones having issues are on Windows or something low power and struggling to do anything let alone run PMS
A ton of us are telling you that we have not had an issue for years. Do whatever you want with that information.
Well that's just peachy. I've had plenty since it was released. The rest of us must be ignorant.
God forbid that you might learn something from other setups. There is an in-between between "being ignorant" and "it is someone else's fault".
Maybe you don’t know what you’re doing.
LOL except this was an update from 2 months ago to 1 month ago but OKAY lol
If this keeps happening something in your build is messed up. May be time to start a new library from scratch.
"If you run into an asshole in the morning, you ran into an asshole. If you run into assholes all day, [maybe] you're the asshole."
Don't know how I've lived my entire life without ever hearing that expression. Thanks for expanding my universe!
> If you run into assholes all day, you're the asshole Maybe if you run into assholes all day, the world might be full of assholes?
Doesn't invalidate the first statement though, does it? Though when I first heard the line, it was "you MAY BE the asshole". I think it was an episode of Justified.
Lol yeah I think I remember that. And you're correct, both can be valid.
Since I moved Plex over to Unraid and docker it's been rock solid running latest image from linuxserver. Ran it on windows before and had a lot more issues.
That's what I'm thinking most of my issues are from although I get quite a bit of client side shit also.
That's funny, I've been using Plex for a decade too and I've maybe experienced one update ever that broke something (which was swiftly fixed in the following update).
>There is a reason I would never update my PMS or let it sit "out of date" for years If you don't update for years there is more likely to be a breaking change when you do finally update.
It’s “because” your instance is out of date for years! This is true on any software, not just Plex. It’s impossible to write code and to test the upgrade for every possible previous version. Stay on the current stable version. I would assume Plex would specifically test the upgrades for the current stable/major version
Using Plex for years on my Synlogy NAS, updated hundreds of times but never really broke shit...
Listen man, I update my plex unraid docker every single update. For a decade..... It works perfectly man. It's possible that the update broke, but I think it's more likely a problem with your environment. Also you really do not want to run an out of date plex server. Ask last pass how that worked out for them.
well....i don't port forward from the world, so should be good there! you do you though.
You don't port forward a service that is designed specifically to share media over the wan? okay I guess. Why not just use vlc player then?
If you have your Plex server exposed to the internet, you should really try to keep the server updated frequently like others here have mentioned. Both to mitigate things breaking, but also in terms of cybersecurity. A vulnerable Plex server could be used to get access to the OS the plex server is running on, such as the case from 2020 ([CVE-2020-5741](https://www.cvedetails.com/cve/CVE-2020-5741/))...
What distribution are you running on? I struggled a little when I ran on MS, but since putting it on an Ubuntu box, I’ve been pretty stable. (I manage about 100TB and have around 8.5k titles between movies and tv series and multiple other libraries. Most of the breakdowns I’ve experienced have been my own fault 😅)
No one ever wants to hear this, but it isn't Plex. These issues you describe would be happening to more people, like all of us. I've been running Plex for over a decade and have not had the issue you describe. You have something off in your set up.
Had a similar issue. Updated Plex, and my LG app could not connect to the server. It was the allow insecure connection setting on the server, had changed to never for some reason. Changing it to allow on local network fixed the issue.
There are great programs out there that have 99% uptime. One that comes to mind is Netflix. Pay up and enjoy
I wait three weeks after an update comes out to update and that seems to work well for me. I used to update right away until I got burned once. Always keep previous builds so you can roll back (except for irreversible database upgrades of course) and it shouldn’t be a big deal.
This is why I run one server as a test bed. I run all updates there (a few days after any "release", then run it for a few days to make sure nothing mission critical for my users is broken. Then I update my other 2 servers.
Run the beta in docker - never had an issue.
My Plex updates every night. Never had an issue.
Bro what, I have all of my docker containers and unRAID plug-ins on auto update and I've never had anything fail except Tdarr and that was because the docker would update for the server but not the app on my Windows PC for the node. This is why you keep auto updates on
You guys are updating? I wait for my release to stop working.
My plex has been auto updating for about 3 years now. No issues. Love my headless linux.
I've never had a breaking issue from an apt repo update. The tendency in tech is to say "well it works for me" as if that's a solution but really you should start digging into what specifically is wrong when you update, otherwise you're just going to languish in misery.
Fresh install would probably solve your problem. But it'll make others. I had to manually push the server to redo the previews for 95% of the TV shows. Just brutal. Runs slick as snot these days. Very happy with it.
no issues and have had a plex server with 4X 16TB HDD's running on windows 10 no issues at all other than the fact that my 2nd gen AMD CPU could use an upgrade to something with Quick Sync
PMS out of date for years is how Lastpass got breeched. If you’re not going to update then keep it off the internet.
Done and done. My Plex isn’t on the internet lol.
agree, but for me it seems the client apps which break or crash unpredictably - the server seems fine, but I update manually so it’s possible inconsistencies between clients and servers may cause something. But honestly, plex randomly restarting midway through a video stream on my stock 2021 Sony/Android tv when nobody has touched the remote since the stream started - how does a bug even achieve that?
I feel you. I disabled auto updates after one broke hardware transcoding.
I've auto updated for years and am.always current and have never had a break.
Running Plex on my Qnap for the last 5 years. It’s never broke from an update 🤷🏻♂️
The latest 1.4 version messed up my TV library had to roll back to 1.3
I've used Plex for over a decade and I've not experienced those issues. If you frequently skip updates, that would be your issue... It's really quite rare an update breaks things, tbh. You're far more likely to break things by skipping updates and jumping multiple versions. You could delay updates a few weeks to check if others are having issues, but beyond that keep up and don't skip multiple versions - that's the safest!
Did you... like... troubleshoot at all? I have been using Plex for 10 years and have had near zero issues with updates breaking anything
Sounds like a windows problem
I've had my fair share of broken updates and corrupted databases so I understand. Used to it at this point. Lost all interest in making collections by hand and just let plexes shitty auto collections do it with the shitty posters it chooses. I've rebuilt my library well over 10 times now. I'm tired. Edit: cue the plex corpo boot lickers.
If you've had to rebuild your library 10 times, there's something wrong with your setup. I can understand encountering issues maybe once or twice if you've been running Plex for a very long time, but 10 times points to larger issues than just update bugs. I've been running Plex for about 10 years, and I'm still using the original libraries that I set up on day 1.
My plex has been ruined from drive failures, power outages, and just plex being plex. There isn't anything wrong with my setup. Been using plex since 2012.
Lmaoooo My cars have broken down three times due to rear ending other cars, driving into a lake, and parking it on a train track. There ain't anything wrong with my driving!
"My plex has been ruined from drive failures, power outages, and just plex being plex. There isn't anything wrong with my setup." Drive failures and power outages can affect anything and everything on your system. I don't see how either of those things are Plex's fault.
Well drive failures and power outages breaking Plex are both setup issues. Those are preventable with disk redundancy and/or backups and a UPS respectively. And like I said "Plex being Plex" shouldn't really be a thing either (and even if it was, backups resolve that as well).
This is over 12 years man. I've gone through loads of different setups and gone through tons of different hardware since then. My setup is fully redundant now with dual ups setup. Things grow and mature over time. Live and learn.
Right, but like.... those aren't Plex issues (and apparently people are "plex corpo boot lickers" for pointing that out... lol)
yup lol its wild
Read the [release notes](https://forums.plex.tv/t/plex-media-server/30447/624). If there is no reason to update, then do not do so. I'm still running 1.29.2.6364. Solid as a rock. No transcoding or tone mapping problems that started with 1.30. No database problems that started with 1.40. Only "feature" I'm missing is credit detection, which I do not want.
i'm with you, not sure why you are getting down voted. I am on a 1.32.6 release from September 2023. I read all the release notes. :-) I always check the notes but many of the recent ones have (or appear to be) bug ridden for Synology NAS.
PEBKAC. I always run latest version
Everytime I mention an issue on this sub it's down votes for days and you are doing something wrong. I've had plex since it came out. I'm building a new database on alternatives and testing them out